A talking parrot in India’s bustling city of Agra, popular with tourists visiting the majestic Taj Mahal, reportedly helped police track down the man responsible for murdering the pet’s owner.

According to the Times of India, local police were struggling a week after the murder of Neelam Sharma, 45, until they received a tip from the most unlikely of sources: Hercules, the dead woman’s parrot.

Neelam’s husband Vijay Sharma, the editor of a Hindi-language daily newspaper, was the first to glean Hercules’ insight. He noticed an abrupt change in the bird’s behavior whenever his nephew Ashutosh visited their house following the Feb. 20 killing.

“During discussions too, whenever Ashutosh’s name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching,” said Sharma. “This raised my suspicion and I informed the police.”

Ashutosh later confessed to the crime during police interrogations following the tipoff.